Wed, 29 Aug 2007
Jacqui Smith, Home Secretary,
answered
in a Written Answer last July:
It is currently estimated that 13.7 per cent. of
profiles held on the
NDNAD are replicates, i.e. that a profile for a person has been loaded
on more than one occasion (one reason for this is that the person gave
different names, or different versions of their name, on separate
arrests). Thus, the number of individuals on the database is
approximately 13.7 per cent. less than the number of subject profiles.
The presence of these replicate profiles on the NDNAD does not impact
on the effectiveness and integrity of the database. Nonetheless, a
long-term exercise is under way to identify issues associated with the
removal of all such redundant replicate profiles.
Marie Woolf
reports
in The Independent Meg Hillier quoting the same source:
Meg Hillier, a Home Office minister, admitted that because of the bogus
replica files [in the National DNA Database], "The number of
individuals on the database is
approximately 13.7 per cent less than the number of subject profiles."
Does that mean that in about 550,000 cases, DNA was taken from individuals, then attempts at matching the profile of this fresh DNA samples with existing DNA profiles in the NDNAD failed? That would be an admission of failure of the NDNAD to an unprecedented level! If that's really what these figures mean, it would say a lot about the effectiveness and integrity of the database.
